


Winter in Sherwood

by CSM_Scriptator



Category: Robin of Sherwood
Genre: Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2801264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSM_Scriptator/pseuds/CSM_Scriptator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This may turn into a start, or may not.  I have another 2 RoS plot bunnies to feed, both Gisburn-related.</p></blockquote>





	Winter in Sherwood

Rain to slough the forest floor, then bitter cold to turn it iron-hard, every rut and pock a stumbling-block. Trees bare and skeletal in the unforgiving light, every sound magnified by the still silence.

Wat and Dickon were back with their families -- the forest wardens would not be looking for them till spring, when there was forest worth warding again. Marion and Much had taken refuge in the Priory -- she had never been cried outlaw, and as an orphan they were pleased to aid her. Much she had called an old family servant's son and they found him space in the stable loft, where he could help with the jennets and ponies they kept. And Tuck had betaken himself to the chapel at Kettlewell that had been Father Vincent's cell. People still passed by, on the Holmewood road, and they would feed a holy man, out of charity, fellow-feeling and in hope of their soul's ease in the long run.

And Robin, John and Scathlock were camped at the Hollow Oak, making the best they could of the odd rabbit or fish or what remained of the buck venison hanging high in the hollow trunk.

 

In Nottingham the Sheriff sat in solitary state in his chamber in the castle, with a fire to warm his bones. It meant that his food was chilled by the time it came from the kitchens, but the hall was too large to get warm enough without every servant spending almost every minute gathering wood from the hedgerows.

Half the time he wondered where the numb-skull Gisburn was, and why he wasn't there to share the Sheriff's plight. The other half he recalled how irritating the fool was, pompous in his rare successes, and wrackingly self-justificatory when, so often, he failed. Aye, if there were hot dinners in place of Gisburn's excuses ...

And he hardly noticed the slim dark-haired man who had slipped into the castle just after Christmas, keen of eye but careful of expression, who spoke little but worked willingly, and listened to every scrap of gossip, harbouring it all against the spring and the Hooded Man's return.

**Author's Note:**

> This may turn into a start, or may not. I have another 2 RoS plot bunnies to feed, both Gisburn-related.


End file.
